Unit Two

Pragmatics
Definitions and Background
• Pragmatics: from ‘pragma’ (Greek word) ‘matter’, ‘thing’ but also ‘action’.

̶ Think of speech acts: express not only information but also action

e.g. Priest: I now pronounce you husband and wife.

o The structure tells us that this sentence is a statement.
o But: practically it is action, i.e. bringing the social fact of marriage.

• There are aspects of meaning that depend more on context and the
communicative intentions of speakers.

̶ These dimensions of meaning are handled by Pragmatics, not semantics.

• The term pragmatics was coined in the 1930s by Charles Morris. 1
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Pragmatics
There are four areas in which pragmatics is concerned with:
1. Pragmatics is the study of speaker meaning.
• Pragmatics studies meaning as communicated by a speaker (or
writer) and interpreted by a listener (or reader).
• Communication depends on not only recognizing the meaning of
words in an utterance but also recognizing what speakers mean by
their utterances in a particular context, i.e. “speaker meaning”.
̶ That is what we call “speaker meaning”.

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1. Pragmatics is the study of speaker meaning.
• Here, we need to talk about reference and inference.
• Reference is an act in which a speaker (or writer) uses language to
enable a listener (or reader) to identify something.
e.g. Using proper names (John, Mary, etc) or
the man, or she, it, etc
• A successful act of reference depends more on the listener’s
ability to recognize what the speaker means than on the listener’s
“dictionary” knowledge of a word that is used.
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e.g. If you are studying linguistics, you might ask your friend: Can I see
your Chomsky? & get the response, sure it’s on the shelf over there.
̶ Here, we use name of a person (Chomsky) to refer to a thing (book).
• The process that gives this interpretation is known as inference.
• Inference: additional information that the listener (reader) uses to
create a connection b/n what is said & what must be meant.
̶ In the above example, the inference is: If X is the name of the
writer of the book, then X can be used to identify a copy of a book
by the writer.
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1. Pragmatics is the study of speaker meaning. (continued)
The following is a report of what two American tourists faced in their tour in

Scotland in the late 1960s:

In a Scottish town, they were visiting a great ruined Cathedral and asked a boy when

the Cathedral was ruined. He replied in the war. Their immediate interpretation was

that he was referring to WWII. But they thought that the ruins looked much longer

than 20 years, so they asked the boy which war he meant. He replied the war with the

English, which they finally discovered, had formally ended in 1745.

• What do you observe in this story about “speaker meaning”?

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• “Speaker meaning” deals with the analysis of what people mean
by their utterances than what words or phrases in those
utterances might mean by themselves.
• What does the expression green light mean in the following
utterance?
e.g. You have the green light.
̶ It allows the interpretation you possess a bulb having green light.
̶ But: we prefer to think that it means you have the permission to
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do or continue doing something.
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Pragmatics
2. Pragmatics is the study of contextual meaning.
• It involves the interpretation of what people mean in a particular
context and how the context influences what is said.
• If someone says to a listener: Is he awake?

̶ The listener has to understand two things to get the meaning.

a) In English sentence meaning, he means ‘male entity referred to by

the speaker’. Knowing this is part of semantic knowledge.

b) Working out who right now the speaker is referring to by he.

̶ Working out this meaning is a task of one’s pragmatic competence.7

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Pragmatics
2. Pragmatics is the study of contextual meaning.
• A speaker can utter the same sentence to a listener:
e.g. The place is closing.
̶ simple statement, stating the fact that the place concerned (say
a house) is going to be closed
̶ But: If you consider context (both physical and linguistic context)
in the analysis of the meaning of this utterance, you find:
o Warning to hurry up
o Command to leave (if they are in a store or drink (bar)
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2. Pragmatics is the study of contextual meaning.
• Consider the following advertisement (from George Yule 2020):
SALE
BABY & TODDLER
PICS OF Babies & Toddlers
̶ Is it about announcing the sale of very young children? No!
̶ Is it about the sale of clothes for children? Yes!
̶ That means, it is the clothes for those children that are on sale.
̶ The word clothes is no where in the message but we used the
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2. Pragmatics is the study of contextual meaning.
• There are some very common words in our language that cannot
be interpreted at all if we do not know the context.
̶ These are words such as here & there, this or that, now or then,
yesterday, today or tomorrow and pronouns like you, she, it, etc.
• Some sentences of English are virtually impossible to understand
if we do not know who is speaking, about whom, where & when.
• What is the meaning of the following utterance: You will have to
bring it back tomorrow because she is not here today? 10
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2. Pragmatics is the study of contextual meaning. (continued)
• Out of context, this sentence is vague. Why is this vague? Well
because it contains a large no of expressions (you, it, today, she,
etc) that rely on knowledge of context for their interpretation.
• In context, we are expected to understand that the delivery drive
(you) will have to return on February 15th (tomorrow) to 666
College Drive (here) with the long box (it) addressed to Lisa Landry
(she).
• Expressions such as tomorrow & here are technically called deictic
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Pragmatics
3. Pragmatics is the study of how more gets communicated than is
said.
• It explores how a great deal of what is unsaid is recognized as part
of what is communicated.
• That is, the investigation of invisible meaning or how we recognize
what is meant even when it is not actually said or written .
• Consider the following case:
A: Are you coming to the party tonight?
B: I’ve something to do. 12
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3. Pragmatics is the study of how more gets communicated than is
said
• Speakers & writers are able to depend on a lot of shared
assumptions and expectations when they try to communicate.
̶ The investigation of these assumptions & expectations provides
us with some insight into how we understand more than just the

linguistic content of utterances.

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3. Pragmatics studies of how more gets communicated than is said
• The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association gives this
example to show how pragmatics influences lg & its interpretation
“You invited your friend over for dinner. Your child sees your friend reach
for some cookies and says, ‘Better not take those, or you’ll get even
bigger.’ You can’t believe your child could be so rude.”

̶ The daughter says that eating cookies can make you gain weight.
̶ In this context, the mother interprets as she calls her friend fat.
o This’s the meaning interpreted by the listener based on z context
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3. Pragmatics studies of how more gets communicated than is said
Scenario 2:
“You talk with a neighbor about his new car. He has trouble staying on topic
and starts talking about his favorite TV show. He doesn’t look at you when
you talk and doesn’t laugh at your jokes. He keeps talking, even when you
look at your watch and say, ‘Wow. It’s getting late.’ You finally leave,
thinking about how hard it is to talk with him.”

• The speaker talks reasonable & simple subjects (sharing of info).

• The listener sees it as a rude monopolization of time (pragmatics)
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3. Pragmatics is the study of how more gets communicated
than is said (continued)
• Voltaire wrote the following:
When a diplomat says yes, he means ‘perhaps’;
When he says perhaps, he means ‘no’;
When he says no, he is not a diplomat.

• Here, it shows that more is involved in what one communicates

than what one literary says.
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3. Pragmatics is the study of how more gets communicated
than is said (continued)
̶ More is involved in what one means than the standard,
conventional meaning of the words one uses.
o In this case, the words ‘yes’, ‘perhaps’ and ‘no’.

• The inferences are made by listeners or readers to arrive at an

interpretation of the intended meaning.
• A great deal of what is unsaid is recognized as part of what is
communicated.
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4. Pragmatics is the study of the expression of relative distance.
• This perspective raises the question of what determines the choice
b/n the said and the unsaid.
• The basic answer is tied to the notion of distance.

̶ Near the speaker (Proximal): this, here, now

̶ Away from the speaker (Distal): that, there, then (past/future)

• Closeness, whether it is physical, social or conceptual, implies
shared experience.

e.g. Put this book over there. 18

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4. Pragmatics is the study of the expression of relative distance
(continued)
• Generally, the closeness or distance of the listener or reader
determines how much needs to be said.

e.g. A: There is a store over there. (Let’s go inside)

B: No. (I don’t want to go inside)

A: Why not? (Why don’t you want to go inside?)

B: I’m tired. (I don’t want to because I’m tired.)

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Pragmatics
• On the assumption of how close or distant the listener is, speakers
determine how much needs to be said.
• These are the four areas that pragmatics is concerned with.
• To understand how pragmatics got to be that way, we have to
briefly review its relationship with other areas of linguistic
analysis.
• One traditional distinction in language analysis contrasts
pragmatics with syntax and semantics.
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Pragmatics
• Syntax is the study of the relationships between linguistic forms,
how they are arranged in sequence and which sequences are
well-formed.
̶ This type of study generally takes place without considering any
world of reference or any user of the forms.
• Semantics is the study of the relationship between linguistic
forms and entities in the world.
̶ That is, how words literally connect to things.
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Pragmatics
• Semantic analysis also attempts to establish the relationships b/n
verbal descriptions and states of affairs in the world as accurate
(true) or not, regardless of who produces that description.
• Pragmatics is the study of the relationships b/n linguistic forms
and the users of those forms.
• Sentence meaning (semantics) in natural languages vastly
underdetermines speaker’s meaning (intentions).
̶ And the goal of pragmatics is to explain how the gap between
sentence meaning & speaker’s meaning is bridged. 22
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Pragmatics
• In this three-part distinction, only pragmatics allows humans into
the analysis.
• The advantage of studying language via pragmatics is that:
̶ one can talk about people’s intended meanings, their
assumptions, their purposes or goals and
̶ the kinds of actions (for e.g. requests) that they are performing
when they speak.
e.g. You’re fired!
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Pragmatics
• The big disadvantage is that all these very human concepts are
extremely difficult to analyze in a consistent and objective way.
• Two friends having a conversation may imply some things and
infer some others without providing any clear linguistic evidence
that we can point to as the explicit source of ‘the meaning’ of
what was communicated.
̶ The following is a problematic case:
Her: so-did you?
Him: Hey – wouldn’t? 24
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• You see the conversation; you know what they said.
But: Do you have any idea about what was communicated?
• Pragmatics is appealing because it’s about how people make
sense of each other linguistically.
• But: It’s also a frustrating area of study because it requires us to
make sense of people and what they have in mind.

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Regularity
• Good news: People tend to behave in fairly regular ways when it
comes to using language.
Sources of regularity
1) People are members of social groups and follow general patterns of
behavior expected from within the group.
̶ Within a familiar social group, we normally find it easy to be
polite and say appropriate things.
̶ In a new, unfamiliar social setting, we are often unsure about
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what to say & worry that we might say the wrong thing.
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2) Another source of regularity in language use derives from the fact
that most people within a linguistic community have similar basic
experiences of the world & share a lot of non-linguistic knowledge
e.g. Let’s say speaker X mentions the information in (a) in the
middle of a conversation:
(a) I found an old bicycle lying on the ground. The chain was
rusted and the tires were flat.
̶ It would be pragmatically odd if the speaker expressed (a) as (b)
given below:
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(b) I found an old bicycle. A bicycle has a chain. The chain was
rusted. A bicycle also has tires. The tires were flat.
̶ It is pragmatically odd in this case because:
If x is a bicycle, then x has a chain & tires (& many other regular parts)
̶ You would perhaps think that more was being communicated than
was being said and that you were being treated as someone with
no basic knowledge (i.e. as stupid).
̶ Of course, nothing is inaccurate in the use of the linguistic forms.
o But: Getting the pragmatics wrong might be offensive.
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